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Consciousness is not computation

joe-antognini.github.io

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Re: Consciousness is not computation

#651

Post by hsn915 »

vidarh wrote: post #493
hsn915 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computation does not have anything essential to it that makes it different from other "atoms jumping around" other than it produces outputs that we find interesting. There's no reason to expect an adder circuit to be aware that it's adding numbers. There's no reason to expect an implementation of AlphaGo to know that it's playing Go. This should be extendable without limitation. There's no reason to expect that a cer…

Without an understanding of what consciousness is , there is also no reason to expect an implementation of an adder to not have some subjective experience. We simply do not know. Formulating this is terms of what there is "no reason to expect" simply obscures that we do not know by glossing over that we have no reason to expect pretty much any other explanation either, because we have pretty much nothing to go on.

Yes but then we are talking about different things. If you want to assume that the adder circuit might be conscious then you might as well assume that a chair has some consciousness.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#652

Post by hsn915 »

simonh wrote: post #314
vbezhenar wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that? Lamda AI claims itself as conscious being. How can you distinguish between two entities which can communicate? Do you discriminate on meat factor?

You can also get it to agree that it is not conscious. I can write a one line program that claims to be conscious right now. Lamda and GTP-3 are amazing achievements, but they're still just chat bots that look good when they're being lobbed softball questions. If you ask something that maps to the input texts they're trained on you get credible looking responses, but critical or adversarial questioning very easily ex…

> You can also get it to agree that it is not conscious.

Careful about how you word this.

Only a conscious being can agree that is not conscious.

I think you mean you can get the program to output text that proclaims its lack of consciousness.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#653

Post by hsn915 »

simonh wrote: post #455
hsn915 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you discriminate on meat factor? Yes.

So does Searle actually. He thinks there is something special about biological systems. In fact I think he basically considers himself a materialist, but I think that's part of where he gets tangled up in his own arguments.

I don't think that meat is the deciding factor. I simply don't know what the deciding factor is, but only animals seem to have consciousness. I say "seem" but only in a philosophical sense. Of course we can't really tell if an animal is really feeling things or is just and advanced robot/zombie with no internal experience.

It's just that given what we know about the world and ourselves, it seems absurd that only I have internal experience, so unless I want to be overy hubristic, I must grant that other people have it too. Since other people have it too, there's no reason to think that animals don't have them.

Plants on the other hand are very different kinds of biological machines, so we can't really say anything about them.

It's possible that other kinds of entities can have self awareness, and it should be obvious that some kind of computation is a pre-requisite for that, but it also seems absurd to assume that it is sufficient.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#654

Post by celeritascelery »

simonh wrote: post #591
celeritascelery wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reductionist argument seems to be “the brain is just a meat computer and is conscious, therefore a complex enough silicon computer will be conscious as well”. I find this very similar to alchemy in the 15th century. The idea was “gold is heavy, malleable, lustery metal, and so is lead. We have observed substances can be converted others. Therefore with the right chemical process we can convert lead to gold”. The…

It depends on whether consciousness is a computational process. If it is then meat or metal really doesn’t matter. We know this because mathematicians have proved that any sufficiently capable computer can perform any computation. So the lead to gold analogy doesn’t hold. It would be as if scientists had proved that any element can be transformed into any other element. Well, if that was true, then yes it follows tha…

> It depends on whether consciousness is a computational process.

Absolutely agree. But that is the assumption that I would liken to alchemists comparing lead and gold. We know almost nothing about the brain. We know almost nothing about consciousness. But yet some people assume that consciousness is computable just because we don't know anything else it could be (just as alchemists assumed gold and lead could be transform because they were both chrysopoeic base metals. They hadn't discovered atomic theory yet). When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

We know that the vast majority of numbers are uncomputable[1]. We also have proved that computation is incomplete[2] and can be undecidable[3]. It seems perfectly logical that consciousness is not computable. Or it could be computable, I obviously don't know. If someone makes the claim that consciousness is computable, then the burden of lies with them. We can't accept that on blind faith. At this point it is all opinion and speculation (as you said) because we still can't even define consciousness in a rigorous way. (and I don't think we will ever create artificial consciousness until we can define it, but that is an orthogonal issue).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability_theory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#655

Post by Sophistifunk »

strogonoff wrote: post #238
Sophistifunk wrote: post #160

The problem with all these arguments is that if consciousness is not an inherent side effect of computation, then it must have evolved, which means it have once given a very simple animal a competitive advantage. But we have no theory, evidence, or even well-thought-out stoner postulations of consciousness having any effect on the material universe, other than fancies of wish fulfilment. It appears to be a one-way pr…

The act of saying “consciousness doesn’t have any effect on the material universe” denies the premise of what’s being said. Behold, your consciousness has just had direct effect on material universe (just as deciding to obtain the device on which it was typed, and before that someone’s idea to make that device, had). I remember myself being unshakeably of the same opinion: consciousness is obviously something of no r…

That's not consciousness. Consciousness is the space in which your brain tells a story pretending that "you" are in charge a lot more often than you are.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#656

Post by zarmin »

russdill wrote: post #647
zarmin wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But framing it as a problem (or program) is begging the question; I'm arguing that it is not a computation.

Which necessitates that somehow, there's some law of physics important to operation in the brain who's effects aren't computable. Yes?

Not exactly. I am saying that consciousness is fundamental; that matter, physics, our brains, etc emerge from consciousness. Physics is the OS, consciousness is the transistors/electricity, and we are conscious agents (to borrow a term from Donald Hoffman) using the OS.

So, instead of the physicalist paradigm of

Physics -> Chemistry -> Biology -> Psychology -> Consciousness

it is the idealist paradigm of

Consciousness -> Physics -> Chemistry -> Biology -> Psychology

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#657

Post by anothernewdude »

denton-scratch wrote: post #507
anothernewdude wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience is that free will is axiomatic. It comes before everything else. What am I? What ever is making these decisions. If weren't, then I wouldn't be the person asking, I'd just be a puppet, therefore my identity would be that of whatever is the hand, and so on until you find whatever is making the decision. Because if the meat puppet didn't make the decision to write this, then you're not conversing…

> My personal experience is that free will is axiomatic. How does that even make sense? "Axiomatic" doesn't mean "true"; it simply means that the axiomatic proposition is a given for the system of reasoning you are using. So if you take X to be axiomatic, that isn't an experience; it's a decision you made. I'm assuming that you can make decisions, because if you are using axioms you are engaged in reasoning, which is…

It's what you have to base everything else on. It comes prior to everything else. Free Will is on the same level as the Cogito. Everything else comes after.

I think, therefore I am. What is part of identity? Free will. If not free will, then there is no identity, no "I".

Axiomatic means unquestionable. The meaning of axiom as a premise for an argument came later.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#658

Post by burrows »

civilized wrote: post #494
burrows wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real problem is pretending that the phrase “what it feels like to be something” is going to act like a key in my dict of feelings. A: You know, the feeling of what it is like to be something. B: sits quietly, looks at ceiling Right, yeah, that feeling. From a different angle, if OP wants to define “consciousness” as some feeling it sounds like he’s basically done. He’s labeled one of his feelings with the…

How would we know what it is "like" to be something? It's like asking the fish what is water. We've never not experienced it. There is nothing to compare it to.

I don’t understand “asking a fish a question”.

But maybe the question you are proposing is the following, “Is it possible to identify a sensation that is always present?”.

Maybe this question is coherent? I’m not sure.

Suppose it isn’t possible to identify a sensation that is always present. Then wouldn’t that mean the state of having no sensations is identical to the state of only having sensations that are always present?

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#659

Post by zarmin »

epgui wrote: post #181
zarmin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The idea that there's something going on in a wet, warm, mushy brain that has a macroscopic effect, What kind of complex computation simulates the subjective experiences of wet, warm, and mushy? EDIT: my account appears to be rate limited, so i am unable to post a reply until idk when.... By "subjective" I am referring to my conscious inner life, that there is something it is like to be me. I am an experiencer becau…

Reply to your edit: I know it would be ideal if there was a simple, short answer, but this question is nearly the equivalent of "please explain all the core ideas of neuroscience/neurology/neuropsychology to me". It's a good question, but it's a big question. This is why in the other thread [1] I've tried to point you in the direction where you will find the answers you are looking for: the answers exist and are for…

First, I'm a little embarrassed because I didn't realize I had started another comment thread with you, I thought it was a different user. I may have done that twice on this post. Sorry to have split the discussion like that. Anyway....

>the answers exist and are for the most part known

I deeply disagree with this. I am not afraid of doing some reading, but I challenge you to find a single study that demonstrates how a certain combination of neurons firing leads to the experience of tasting vanilla.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#660

Post by 3g4o53g4o5 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #516
i_like_apis wrote: post #16

The author's "triviality argument" doesn't hold up: > 1. To say that a physical system is a computer requires an external observer to map the physical states of that system onto the abstract states of a Turing machine. > 2. Consciousness does not require an external observer to exist. > 3. Therefore, consciousness cannot be reduced to computation. A physical system may be a computer regardless of whether it is verifi…

I think you may have missed the point (of course, it could be me that missed the point :-) The argument was that for a physical system to be a computer, an element of intent or interpretation is needed; otherwise it's just a bunch of stuff doing what stuff does naturally. Perhaps the (horribly flawed) iron bar example is making the point that whether some configuration of magnetic dipoles is a computer depends on you…

> computer, an element of intent or interpretation is needed; otherwise it's just a bunch of stuff doing what stuff does naturall

I mean this violates nothing and I am completely confused why it is a concern.

AI face recognizing cameras are outdoors and run 24/7, and you are trying to say that things like it is not computing and unable to carry out computation?

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